PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea declared Kim Jong Il's son and successor "supreme leader" of the ruling party, military and the people during a memorial Thursday for his father in the government's first public endorsement of his leadership.

Kim Jong Un, head bowed and somber in a dark overcoat, stood on a balcony at the Grand People's Study House overlooking Kim Il Sung Square watching the memorial, which also served as a show of support for North Korea's next leader. He was flanked by top party and military officials, including Kim Jong Il's younger sister, Kim Kyong Hui, and her husband Jang Song Thaek, who are expected to serve as mentors of their young nephew.

Solemn and grimacing, the younger Kim stood motionless throughout the ceremony.

Given Kim Jong Un's inexperience and age — he is in his late 20s — there are questions outside North Korea about whether he is equipped to lead a nation engaged in long-stalled negotiations over its nuclear program and grappling with decades of economic hardship and chronic food shortages.

But support among North Korea's power brokers was unequivocal at the memorial service, attended by hundreds of thousands of people filling Kim Il Sung Square and other plazas in central Pyongyang.

"The fact that he completely resolved the succession matter is Great Comrade Kim Jong Il's most noble achievement," Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, told the massive audience at the square.

Thursday's memorial "was an event to publicly reconfirm and solidify" Kim Jong Un's status, said Jeung Young-tae, an analyst with the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, South Korea.

"Kim Jong Un is already the leader of the party, military and country," he said.

'World-class military power'
Life in the North Korean capital came to a standstill as a mourners blanketed the plaza from the Grand People's Study to the Taedong River for the second day of funeral ceremonies for the late leader.

Reuters reported that temperatures that stood at about 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius) during the event. State TV showed a delegation of foreigners attending the memorial.

The North's economic output is now smaller than in the 1990s under the rule of his father Kim Il Sung, who founded the state in 1948, and it has been squeezed harder under international sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests.

Kim Jong Il, who led his 24 million people with absolute power for 17 years,
died of a heart attack Dec. 17 aged 69
, according to state media. He inherited power from his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, who died of a heart attack in 1994, in what was the communist world's first hereditary succession.

Attention turned to Kim Jong Un after he was revealed last year as his father's choice among three known sons to carry the Kim dynasty into a third generation.

Kim Jong Il's two other sons, Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Chol, were not spotted at either the funeral or memorial.

KRT via Reuters TV

Kim Jong Un, second from left. looks on, next to Chief of General Staff of the Korea People's Army Ri Yong Ho, left, during the memorial for late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on Thursday.

The process to groom Kim Jong Un was rushed compared to the 20 years Kim Jong Il had to prepare to take over from his father, and relied heavily on the Kim family bloodline and legacy as guerrilla fighters and the nation's founders.

However, it may take Kim Jong Un some months to assume the full panoply of official titles held by his father.

"The real question is whether the new Kim has the cruelty and cunning, qualities that his father and grandfather Kim Il Sung possessed in plenty, to preserve in the long run the essential engine of the destitute dynasty he inherits," wrote Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University, a leading North Korea watcher.

Pyongyang

EDITOR'S NOTE: Media access to Kim Jong Il's funeral is restricted. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has provided many of the images.

Korean People's Army officers bowing their heads at the memorial service for the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at the Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, Dec. 29, ending 13 days of official mourning and formally declaring his young son, Kim Jong Un as the new supreme leader.
(KCNA via AFP - Getty Images)
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Pyongyang

Pyongyang

North Koreans pray silently during a memorial for Kim Jong Il on Dec. 29. Three minutes of silence were observed nationwide, after which sirens and ship and train horns were heard.
(KCNA via Reuters)
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Tokyo, Japan

Mourners gather in front of a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a memorial service organized by the General Association of Korean residents in Japan, in Tokyo on Dec. 29.
(Kyodo News via AP)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans react during their late leader Kim Jong Il's funeral procession in Pyongyang in this image taken from video Dec. 28. North Korea's military staged a huge funeral procession on Wednesday in the snowy streets of the capital Pyongyang for its deceased "dear leader," Kim Jong Il.
(KRT via Reuters)
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Pyongyang

Military personnel bow as a car passes with a portrait of Kim Jong Il during his funeral at Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang. North Korean state television began broadcasting the funeral of late leader Dec.28, with footage of tens of thousands of troops bowing their heads in the snow outside a memorial palace.
(KCNA via AFP - Getty Images)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans grieve during the funeral procession for Kim Jong Il as his casket arrives at the square of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang.
(KCNA via AFP - Getty Images)
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Pyongyang

Mourners gather around a hearse carrying the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's coffin as it passes through the streets of the North Korean capital Pyongyang during his state funeral Dec.28. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans lined the route of Kim Jong Il's funeral cortege in snowfall as the leader's body was driven through the streets of Pyongyang.
(KCNVA via EPA)
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Pyongyang

Seoul, South Korea

A South Korean war veteran burns a North Korean flag and pictures of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un during a rally against North Korea in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 28, the same day of the funeral for the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il.
(Ahn Young-joon / AP)
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Seoul, South Korea

South Korean activists try to enter the office of pro-unification civic group after one of its members entered North Korea to send her condolences for late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at a rally on Dec. 28, in Seoul, South Korea.
(Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images)
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Pyongyang

Pyongyang

Lee Hee-ho, widow of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, shakes hands with new North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after she paid her respects to the late Kim Jong Il Dec. 26. Lee Hee-ho, whose husband drew up a now-abandoned policy of engagement with the North, led a delegation across the border and laid wreaths at the mausoleum where Kim Jong Il's body is on display.
(KCNA via Reuters)
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Pyongyang

Workers of the Kim Jong Tae electric locomotive plant gathering for what was described as a declaration of their resolve and to offer condolences to Kim Jong Il Dec. 26.
(KCNA via KNS - AFP - Getty Images)
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Pyongyang

Civilians use their jackets to shelter flowers offered to pay tribute to their late leader Kim Jong Il at a square in front of Pyongyang Gymnasium Dec. 23.
(KCNA via KNS - AP)
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Pyongyang

Paju, South Korea

North Korean defectors who live in South Korea prepare to fly balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets at the Imjinkak pavilion, near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas in Paju, Dec. 21. The defector groups released 200,000 anti-North Korea leaflets and celebrated the death of Kim Jong Il with protests against condolences to the dictator's death. The slogans on the balloons read "Liberate North Korean compatriot,"
"Terminated three generation hereditary power transfer," "Go to hell, Kim Jong-il," "No condolence call to devil" and "North Koreans, uprising".
(Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters)
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Pyongyang

Foreigners living and working in Pyongyang, including the United Nations' resident coordinator in North Korea, Jerome Sauvage, right front, pay their respects at a portrait of late North Korean leader at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, Dec. 21.
(AP)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans make a call of condolence at the Kim Il Sung Plaza in Pyongyang in this picture released by the North's official KCNA news agency, Dec. 21.
(KCNA via Reuters)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans visit mourning places throughout the country to express condolences over the death of leader Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, Dec. 20.
(Kcna / EPA)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans pass a row of flags flying at half mast on the morning after the day that the death of their leader Kim Jong Il was announced, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday Dec. 20, 2011.
(AP)
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Pyongyang

New North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un pays respects to his father and former leader Kim Jong Il, who is lying in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang on Tuesday, Dec. 20.
(Reuters TV)
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Pyongyang

North Koreans visit mourning places throughout the country to express deep condolences over the death of leader Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Dec. 20.
(EPA)
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Pyongyang, North Korea

Hundreds of North Koreans gather to mourn the death of their leader, Kim Jong Il, in front of a giant statue of his father, Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday, Dec. 19. North Korea's news agency reported that he had died at 8:30 a.m. Saturday after having a heart attack on a train, adding that he had been treated for cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases for a long time. He was 69 years old.
(AP)
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Pyongyang, North Korea

Paju, South Korea

South Korean soldiers patrol near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul Dec. 19. The death of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il sparked immediate concern over who is in control of the reclusive state and its nuclear program.
(Lim Byong-sik / Yonhap via Reuters)
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Seoul, South Korea

South Koreans read extras reporting the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at the train station in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 19.
(Ahn Young-joon / AP)
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Beijing, China

A waitress cries after hearing news of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, at a North Korean restaurant in Beijing, Dec. 19. China said that it was "distressed" to learn of the death of Kim Jong Il, but remained confident that the North would remain united and that the two neighbors would keep up their cooperation.
(China Daily via Reuters)
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Beijing, China

Staff hoist a national flag at half-mast on the rooftop of North Korean Embassy in Beijing on Dec. 19, following the announced death of Kim Jong Il.
(Kyodo News via AP)
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